Sometimes, being prowoman and prolife can be very frustrating. Sometimes, you just want to scream. This is one of those mornings…

Women abort potential babies because they would prefer not to be a mother at all, rather than be an inadequate parent. It’s not that they don’t care about the unborn child, it’s because they care so much.

It is right for us to be sympathetic to these fears of inadequacy, and it is our duty to soothe these fears, educate and create systems of support that eradicate the perceived need to abort. I’ve heard this argument before, that it’s better to not be a parent at all than to have been a bad parent. On behalf of all of those with difficult childhoods in less than perfect homes, I protest.

As a parent myself, I know that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. Women are told this bumper sticker style slogan to convince them they’re making the right decision for not only themselves, but for their baby. I’ve heard this repeated in 12th and Delaware by the abortion clinic operator, Candace, who tells a woman she’d be a bad person if she had the child and then mistreated it. But abortion or being a failure as a parent are not the only options, and we need to stop telling women they are and instead do something to support their efforts.

So rather than pull my hair out, I’m going to celebrate those women who have made the choice to have their children (like my own mother, and I’m sure many of yours) and not let the Candaces of the world tell them it’s too much of a risk because the odds aren’t in their favour.

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Andrea adds: The article ends by asking: “Isn’t it better to end the pregnancy than be a parent when you know you are not ready for it?” And the short answer is no, it’s not. You’ll never know how and whether you could have risen to the occasion and become a better person by having the baby. Secondly, no one is telling women they have to parent. There’s another “A word” and it’s called adoption. My BS o’meter went through the roof on this. Or, as Brigitte would say, colour me unsympathetic. We are prowoman and prolife, not gullible and timid, and that means sometimes you have to call your fellow women to account. So to this writer, I would say, don’t pretend abortion is a courageous act. You know somewhere deep down that it’s not.  

…for Dr. Mildred Jefferson.

Associated Press

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a prominent, outspoken opponent of abortion and the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, died Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by Anne Fox, the president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, one of many anti-abortion groups in which Dr. Jefferson played leadership roles.

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, “gave my profession an almost unlimited license to kill,” Dr. Jefferson testified before Congress in 1981.

[…]

“She probably was the greatest orator of our movement,” Darla St. Martin, co-executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, said Monday. “In fact, take away the probably.”

In a 2003 profile in The American Feminist, an anti-abortion magazine, Dr. Jefferson said, “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.”

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Andrea adds: Wow. Memorize that last sentence. “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.” Sounds like a ProWomanProLife motto to me.

Some folks are trying to organize an electronic debate on abortion, here. It’s in French, but I don’t know whether the organizers would agree to have an English component if asked.

Excuse the sarcasm, but this is a bit much:

When I studied bioethics, the topic of addicted mothers — especially of the pregnant variety — was the issue  to polarize a group. Check this one out:

Project Prevention. It pays money to drug addicts so they can be sterilized. Should we be shocked? I don’t know. Call me disillusioned but we’ve been able to remove ourselves from the gene pool for quite some time now. Is getting a financial reward to do so any worse? The slope isn’t that slippery at the bottom. As far as I can read, the state is not paying people to be sterilized. Nor is the state deciding who should get paid to have it zipped.

All in all, much ado about nothing. Not to mention that sterilizing males does nothing to prevent the birth of drug-addicted babies.

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Andrea adds: “The slope isn’t that slippery at the bottom,” is a good point, Véronique. While I may not be shocked, I am dismayed that rather than curtail sexual behaviour, we’d rather all run out and get ourselves sterilized. There’s something upside down about that. But then again, I’m pro-life. I think it’s upside down to consider aborting as a solution to anything at all. Very backwards, I know.

This is a good overview of the issues with regards to Roxanne’s Law, or Bill C-510, which will undoubtedly be a bill we hear more about.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHuN3hKaUF4″>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHuN3hKaUF4]

Susan Boyle, of Britain’s Got Talent fame, says her mother was advised to abort her.

One week today there’s a conference in Ottawa for married folks put on by the folks at the Neeje Association for Women and Family. I hear good things about the speaker. I also hear that most married people long for better communication. So here’s the info:  

In an era of social networking, what about communication in marriage?

Friday, October 22, Ben Franklin Place (101 Centrepointe) 7:30 p.m.

Tickets www.neeje.ca
$25/person $40/couple free refreshments and parking

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Véronique adds: I also hear that I am on the organizing committee. Tickets anyone?

…by yours truly, in today’s Post about when abortions occur:

From the awfully talented Jan Eliot: